According to a first prior art, there is a known screen copying method in which a simple screenshot is captured. The image displayed on the screen is saved, but only as a simple copy of what is visible on the screen, without any additional elements. However, some elements presented on the screen are enriched with links pointing to other images or other objects. In such a simple screenshot, only the displayed image as visible on the screen is saved, the additional elements possibly enriching the displayed image with live links being permanently lost during this save. The visible image of the link is thus saved but not its functionality, meaning that during a subsequent redisplay of this saved image, the link is also redisplayed but is no longer live, and the object associated with this link has been totally lost.
Thus, when capturing a screenshot, whether total or only partial in which case it is called a screen portion, the generated output is raw data in a standard image format, for example JPEG or PNG. This image format contains a set of pixel-related information that enables reconstruction of an image on the screen by displaying this image when the file storing this image is opened.
This means that the screenshot, for example of a web page (Internet) or of another document containing links that are pointers, does not allow preserving these links and therefore provides only a simple still image devoid of information other than pixels, which means it has lost any additional elements which could have enriched this simple image.
With a captured screenshot all link or pointer elements are therefore logically lost. As a result, it is impossible for example to find, from a screenshot, the source of the information contained in the screenshot.
This simple screenshot only has the color, or if appropriate the grayscale, of the set of points of the displayed image, these points being called pixels, without adding any information other than these simple colors or grayscales. In summary, this screenshot can be considered akin to a simple copy of a raw image as would be taken by a camera.
According to a second prior art, there is a known file copying method in which the entire file storing the displayed image will be saved. However, this file is not saved in an image file format. It is not possible to select only a portion, or at least not possible to select a portion graphically, for example by graphically selecting this portion of the image directly on the displayed image; it is therefore even less possible to use this image portion directly and independently, either alone or in combination with another document in which it would be integrated for example.
This second prior art provides only a simple functionality corresponding to a simple “Save as” of a Web page or other document that is a text document for example, without allowing the selection of a portion of this web page or this other text document when the latter contains links or pointers. Thus, for example, if the user wishes to capture a table which is placed in a web page and which contains pointers to other pages, the user cannot select this table and thus obtain a data set allowing integration of this table into other documents, for example an email or text presentation and/or graphical presentation. This second prior art also requires other software which is able to reread the obtained file.